


Rigor Mortis

by Magical_Destiny



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: #ItsStillBeautiful, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Romance, First Kiss, Hannibal Cre-Ate-ive, Hannibal and Will pull a Romeo and Juliet, ItsStillBeautiful, Last Kiss, M/M, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 03:55:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7742359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magical_Destiny/pseuds/Magical_Destiny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Till death did them part. Written for Hannibal Cre-Ate-Ive’s #It’sStillBeautiful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rigor Mortis

Jack Crawford could see the blood even before he stepped out of the car. The patio in front of the angular cliffside house was fairly covered in the stuff. It was at least twenty-four hours old according to the first responders’ best guess, dried and crusted and no longer able to reflect the rays of the distant sunset. The stiff body of the Red Dragon Killer, identified now as Francis Dolarhyde, formed the epicenter of the explosion of red. His eyes were frozen wide, staring sightlessly at the clouds drifting overhead. There was a chunk missing from his throat and a nasty looking gash across his side. It probably matched the blood-drenched knife abandoned on the pavement beside the body. The throat wound probably matched Hannibal Lecter's teeth. 

Jack sighed and searched the swaths of dried blood for any sign of what had become of Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter. There were a few footprints here and there, different shoes and sizes, definitely at least three distinct prints, but no sign of where the other two men might have gone. With the sheer amount of blood, Jack felt sure it couldn't be far. 

He paused at the edge of the cliff overlooking the bay far below, and wondered about the safety of building a house so close to the precipice. Maybe it wasn't safe at all. Maybe Hannibal owned this place and he didn't care about something as prosaic as sure foundations. 

Jack blinked against the sharply slanting sun and watched the waves caress the rocks at the foot of the cliff. The sun was almost gone; it set the water on fire as it went. On the narrow strip of sand below, a few men in FBI jackets shaded their eyes from the glare as they milled around the cliff's edge. One of them disappeared around a bend in the rock. The flash of sirens and the chatter of agents collecting evidence almost drowned out the murmur of the water below. 

Jack drifted in the enveloping sounds, his mind far away from broken bodies and blood-drenched stone. From far across the sea, Bella smiled at him. 

Back on his side of the ocean, a walkie talkie crackled somewhere nearby with a single, dire pronouncement. " _We've got some bodies._ " Below, the FBI agents turned as one to head down the beach. Jack blinked away the burning after images of sunlight dying on the water and followed a thin footpath that wound gradually down the cliffside.

When his feet at last hit the sand, Jack’s view was screened by a thick circle of agents and policemen. ”Excuse me," he said, assuming firm and easy authority — even though he wasn't at all sure he wanted to see what waited for him beyond the crowd. They parted as easily as water, regardless of his wishes. 

Jack’s breath caught.

The confirmation of his darkest suspicions felt surprisingly gentle in Jack's chest, a distant shattering instead of searing heat. But then, the most violent wounds were the ones you didn't feel until much later. Shock and adrenaline had a way of cushioning the blow. Jack never did have much use for shock himself. It dulled the faculties, slowed the reactions. He didn’t usually experience it. He was too stubborn, Bella used to say. 

Time itself seemed to slow to a crawl, and Jack wondered if he was finally feeling shock’s hazy but implacable grip. He forced himself forward for a closer look at the bodies. 

It was Will and Hannibal. Their faces were easily recognizable, even bruised and bloodied. Jack would have known them from their clothes if the faces hadn't been enough. From their hands and the set of their shoulders. He’d had dinner with them, worked long hours with them, sat in friendly conversation and commiserative silence with them. And after all that had ended, he’d spent countless hours staring at their files alone in his office. There was no doubt — it was them. 

Jack took another step and sank into the sucking embrace of the wet sand. 

Rigor mortis had set in, freezing the two of them irrevocably into their final posture. They were locked together, Hannibal's head on Will's chest, one arm tucked under Will's shoulders, as though he’d been gripping tight when he took his last breath. Will had lifted his hand to cradle Hannibal's head, and died with his fingers tangled through his hair. Their closed eyes were the far sides of a shared axis; even in death, they were looking only at each other. Hannibal looked almost happy. 

Will looked strange, although Jack couldn't say exactly why, other than the obvious absence of blood in his cheeks. He’d never believed in ghosts, but dying indisputably turned bodies into pale, spectral shadows of themselves. 

He pulled free of the sand pressing like ice against his ankles and marched straight back up the footpath, barking a few standard procedure commands about getting the forensics team. He didn't pause until he was standing beside the car that would take him away from the scene. His eyes were drawn back to the blood swirling across the patio like a hurricane frozen mid-spin. 

It looked black as tar in the moonlight. 

===

There had been a time, Jack recalled, when Will's body on an autopsy table had been the subject of his vivid nightmares. Will's graying skin had bunched around the sutured Y incision as he sat upright and regarded Jack with vacant eyes. But here, now, Will wasn't moving. He was perfectly still under the white sheet, not breathing, not even bleeding anymore. He wasn't anything. 

Jack almost preferred the nightmare to the reality. 

The other frequent subject of his nightmares, Hannibal Lecter, was laid on a table beside Will's, covered just the same. Jack didn't look at him. 

Jimmy Price left the sheets over the two of them as he rattled off the autopsy findings with nothing like his usual energy. It was everything Jack expected after viewing the scene: a gunshot wound to Hannibal's abdomen, multiple stab wounds to Will, contusions, abrasions, lacerations, massive blood loss, and hypothermia from their plunge into the bay. It all matched the prevailing theory that three men had fought each other and all ended up dead. The Dragon — Dolarhyde, Jack corrected himself — was already in a drawer, but Jimmy confirmed that his torn throat matched Hannibal's teeth, and his torn gut matched the knife bearing Will's bloody fingerprints. They'd definitely killed him together. Jack sighed, but it only increased his sensation of sagging under a great weight. 

"Anything else?" 

"Well..." Jimmy glanced at Brian uncertainly, and Jack abruptly lost his patience. 

"Spit it out," he said flatly, making it very clear it was an order. 

Jimmy looked down at his clipboard and swallowed hard. Jack stared at him. He'd never known Price to hold his tongue before. 

"It's just an insignificant detail. I feel strange about including it, since it isn't relevant to the investigation. They're both dead and the whole case is closed. Or will be."

“Everything, Jimmy. _Now_."

Brian answered instead.

"According to DNA analysis, in addition to all the blood, Will and Hannibal died with each other's saliva on their lips. Maybe Hannibal administered CPR.” Brian stopped, but there was an _or_ hanging in the air.

Jack had a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. He ignored it. ”Or what?"

Brian shrugged, looking uncomfortable. ”Or maybe he kissed him."

"I told you," Jimmy interrupted in a strangely quiet tone, "there's no way it was CPR. The bruising on Hannibal's arm is nearly conclusive proof that Will was the one who dragged them out of the water. Will didn’t _need_ CPR.” 

"He could've passed out right after," Brian argued. 

"He'd lost so much blood that I don't think he'd have come back from losing consciousness." 

"You really think they spent their last moments macking on the beach?” Brian asked, and it was obvious they were rehashing an argument. 

"Given the posture of the bodies when they were found, I think it's entirely possible. Either way, it's not relevant," Jimmy murmured, looking tired. "But I'll put it in the autopsy report." 

The report that every journalist from here to the West Coast would be clamoring to read and publish. 

Jack pursed his lips and thought of Will's haggard face every time he asked him to join an investigation. Thought of Molly Graham's warm smile when she looked at her husband, of their son disappearing through the porch door with his adopted dad to take the dogs out. He thought of all he owed Will, for the stolen peace and disturbed rest, the haunted looks and whispered requests to be left alone. All he owed him for sending him straight into the lion's den again and again. He sighed heavily. 

”Leave it out," Jack muttered. He could feel Jimmy and Brian's stares as he turned to the door. Instead of goodbye, he called, "We never had this conversation." 

He left the lab. Instead of the steady echo of his footsteps, he heard Will’s voice from long ago. _Whose profile is he working on?_ It was the first time the three of them had been in a room together. Jack paused, glancing back through the glass wall at two cold bodies under white sheets. He realized, too late, that they’d just been in a room together for the last time. He fought a shiver and walked away.

===

Crime scene photos were always cold-blooded things. Harshly lit to enhance detail, angled to display evidence rather than beauty. They were stark, bloody, and ugly in the extreme because they captured broken human bodies like numbers would be jotted down in a ledger. The photos of Will and Hannibal’s final tableau was no different. They looked sickly white and ghoulish in the glossy photos spread over Jack’s desk.

Alana was shaking. It wasn’t an overt tremor; Jack only noticed because the ice in her drink chittered against the glass as she raised it to her lips. She’d been the first one he’d called after the autopsies. She’d materialized in his office in an impressively short period of time, given the fact that she and her family had disappeared into hiding when Hannibal escaped. 

“So it’s true,” she said, cupping the glass with both hands as she sank down into the chair across the desk from Jack. “They’re really dead.” 

“Yes.” The words dropped like a stone between them, and Alana’s face rippled with an emotion Jack couldn’t entirely identify. It was edged with something like grief.

“I couldn’t believe it when you called me.” She glanced at the photos again and swallowed hard, her eyes distant and glassy. “Well,” she said, an unstable whisper, “I guess we can come home now.” 

“One good thing to come out of this mess,” Jack agreed. “How’s your family?” 

“Scared,” Alana answered, her voice hardening. Alana had never been hard before that night at Hannibal’s home. They’d all walked away with scars, and they’d all healed differently. Jack glanced at Will’s bloodless face in the center photo and reflected that some of them had never healed at all. 

Alana’s thumb traced the rim of her half-filled glass. She stared at the melting ice, her face smooth, but radiating tension. Jack waited for her to speak. “Hannibal told me once that I couldn't understand him,” she said at last. She nodded at the spread of photos. “I’m not sure I understand Will, either. I’m not sure I ever did.” 

_Join the club_ , Jack thought, infinitely tired. But when he spoke what came out was, “They understood each other. I hope that was enough for them. God knows nothing else was.” 

Jack remembered two snowy days in Wolf Trap. He remembered Will working on a boat engine like a man in a trance, admitting quietly that he’d wanted to leave with Hannibal. It was that engine and the boat it belonged to that went missing along with Will when he disappeared to look for Hannibal. He remembered another day, not long after, when Hannibal had walked into the pale circle of headlights outside Will’s home, hands up in surrender, eyes drifting to Will. Insatiable, the both of them. 

“You think that’s what this was?” Alana asked, pulling a photo toward herself with a single fingertip. Like she was loathe to touch it or bring it close. “Understanding?” Her glass left a puddle of condensation when she set it on the desk beside the photo. “It looks like destruction to me.” 

She stood up, and Jack could almost see her shaking off the shadows around them. “I’m going to call my wife. Thank you for getting in touch, Jack.” Alana Bloom disappeared through the doorway, and Jack had a sneaking suspicion he’d never see her in this office again. He sat with the photos of two men he’d once called his friends, and wondered whether his only visitors from the past would be the ghosts he didn’t believe in. 

He pulled the displaced photo back into line with the others, gathering them all up to slip into the file at the edge of his desk. It was almost time to put all the images away, all the evidence and testimonies and reports. It was almost time to officially close the case of the Chesapeake Ripper and the man who’d caught him. 

There’d been a time when Jack had worked for this day with a fervor and a dedication that had all but consumed his life and distanced him from his dying wife. It had been his life’s work. Now it was done, and Jack looked at his dark office, the weeping glass, the stacked photos — and felt nothing but emptiness. 

He wondered about the Will Graham he’d met, all impatience and irritation and sweeping brilliance. Will had been may things, but as far as Jack could tell, happy wasn’t one of them. Would he have found happiness if Jack hadn’t always intruded with case files and investigations? What had he felt these past few years? 

What had he felt in his final moments? 

He glanced at the stack of photos, lifting the one at the top as though it could provide answers. The indefinable strangeness crept over Jack again, and he searched Will’s slack face for answers. There was something about his expression that was entirely different from anything Jack had seen in Will before. His eyes were closed gently instead of screwed shut, his lips slack instead of pressed tight or shaking. His forehead was smooth instead of contracted in distress. Understanding broke over Jack like the waves that had carried Hannibal and Will to the beach to die together. 

He breathed in the empty silence of his office, sliding the photos into the file at last — their final resting place. He placed the file carefully in his desk drawer, locking it tight until he could have it permanently filed away. Only then did he let himself consider his revelation so he could decide whether or not to be comforted by it. 

Will looked like a man at peace. 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, first of all, I'M SORRY FOR THE ANGST. I just kept seeing this scenario in my head and I had to write it down. Hannibal and Will dying together, with Will only giving in to everything he feels at the point of death...it's an epic tragedy of an ending. As far as I'm concerned the only acceptable outcomes for the cliff dive are 1) Hannibal and Will both live, or 2) Hannibal and Will both die. Either way, they're together. (Help, I'm an incurable sap.)
> 
> So yeah, this was painful. :0 My other #ItsStillBeautiful fic, Threshold, has a happy ending if you need to detox from angst! I'm feeling a heaping helping of guilt for subjecting everyone to this sadness, lol. Feel free to yell at me in the comments. But please do tell me what you think!


End file.
